The Kid Who Would Be King and Serenity both bomb at the box office

(Image credit: 20th Century Fox)

published 28 January 2019

Glass shattered the competition at the box office this weekend while both new releases tanked.

The Kid Who Would Be King, 20th Century Fox's King Arthur-inspired family film, couldn't take the box office crown, making just $7.2 million in its debut and coming in fourth place, per Box Office Mojo. This was a catastrophic opening considering the film cost around $60 million to produce, Variety reports. The poor showing is surprising; critics found the movie to be solid kid-friendly entertainment, and it earned a Rotten Tomatoes score of 86 percent.

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To put both of these failures in perspective, neither of the new releases was able to make more money than Aquaman, which has now been out for six weeks and this weekend officially became the highest grossing D.C. comics film of all time. But it was Glass that came in first place for the second weekend in a row, making another $19 million. The M. Night Shyamalan trilogy-ender is currently just a few million dollars behind where Split was at this point in its run. It seems mixed-to-negative reviews were unable to break the film's box office prospects.

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Brendan worked as a culture writer at The Week from 2018 to 2023, covering the entertainment industry, including film reviews, television recaps, awards season, the box office, major movie franchises and Hollywood gossip. He has written about film and television for outlets including Bloody Disgusting, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Heavy and The Celebrity Cafe.

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